ROME, SEPT. 10, 2004 (Zenit.org).- Documentation collected over 10 years on the life of the Schoenstatt Movement co-founder Mario Hiriart has been handed in to the Congregation for Sainthood Causes.
«Now the process can begin, here, in the Vatican,» said Father Joaquín Alliende, postulator general for the beatification, in statements Thursday to the press.
Among the miracles attributed to Hiriart’s intercession is the scientifically inexplicable recovery of a married couple, Guillermo Tagle and Cristina Quiroga, who were in Rome when the documentation was handed in to the Vatican.
Hiriart was born in Santiago, Chile, in 1931. He was part of a Catholic Action youth group. Later he studied engineering at the Catholic University of Chile.
He learned about the Schoenstatt Movement and, together with other youths, formed the first university group of this ecclesial charism, the Knights of the Holy Grail.
Hiriart consecrated himself, as a layman, in the Secular Institute of the Brothers of Mary, in Brazil, in 1957.
He eventually returned to Chile and began his work as professor at the Catholic University of Chile, at the same time carrying out his apostolic work in the Schoenstatt Movement.
Diagnosed with cancer, he died on July 15, 1964, at 33.
«Mario is the model of the man Schoenstatt wishes to form: of clear ideas, totally dedicated to the mission, and penetrated by the religious, including his subconscious,» Father Josef Kentenich, Schoenstatt’s founder, said on the day Hiriart died.
